John Ray F.R.S. (1627-1705) was the leading English naturalist of the 17th century. The son of a blacksmith, born in Black Notley in Essex, Ray was educated at Trinity College Cambridge, where he would also become a Fellow. Ray took holy orders in 1660 but subsequently resigned in 1662, unable to conform to the requirements of the Act of Uniformity.

After leaving Cambridge, Ray travelled extensively, both through Britain and Europe, with his former student friend and later patron, Francis Willughby. He made botanical collections during those travels. The bulk of the specimens in Ray’s herbarium are European, or from cultivation, collected during Ray’s European travels between 1663 and 1665 (Trimen, 1870), described by Ray in his Observations in the Low Countries (1673). There are, additionally, a number of specimens from England that Trimen suggests were probably collected during travels in 1667 and 1668. The plants gathered on his British tours were described in his Catalogus plantarum Angliae (1670). Ray's specimens were also used for his Methodus plantarum nova (1682) and the Historia generalis plantarum which he published in three volumes in 1686, 1688 and 1704. As Trimen (1870) noted, Ray’s botanical specimens are therefore of particular value in determining the identity of plants described in his publications.

Ray’s herbarium comprises 523 sheets arranged in 20 lettered fascicles (A-Y but with no I, P, U, V or X) and with each fascicle comprising between 9 and 44 numbered sheets (although there are two sheets labelled F16, with the second distinguished by an asterisk, and one sheet in fascicle R is unnumbered). The sheets typically contain multiple specimens that are stitched to the paper on which they are mounted and that are labelled in the hand of Ray (or, possibly, Dale). The sheets were subsequently remounted after their transfer to BM. Typically, the original sheet is mounted onto the larger sheet but this is not always the case and in some instances only the specimens and labels were remounted.

Not all of the specimens that originally formed part of Ray’s herbarium survive since a significant number of sheets have been cut and, in some cases, the past existence of specimens is evident only from plant fragments, stitch holes, discolouration, or the accompanying name.

Upon his death in 1705, Ray bequeathed his herbarium to the apothecary Samuel Dale. While in Dale’s possession, he produced an alphabetically arranged catalogue to the herbarium that lists pre-Linnean polynomial names, sometimes with the place of publication and, more rarely, with synonyms. References to the sheets on which specimens referrable to that name are found are also provided. The catalogue collectively accounts for 1225 specimens, although no specimens from the 89 sheets that make up fascicles T, W or Y were catalogued by Dale.

The dataset provided here contains two resources. The first is a transcription of Dale’s catalogue to the herbarium that serves as a taxonomic index. Links to images of the corresponding herbarium sheets are provided. We hope that in due course, we will be able to provide images of the catalogue pages as part of this dataset. We also aim to include modern determinations. The second comprises images of all 523 herbarium sheets.

Reference: Trimen, H. (1870). Notes on Ray’s ‘Hortus Siccus’. Journal of Botany, British and foreign 8: 82—84.